The following diseases are referred to in this chapter as being
infectious diseases:
A. Contagious diseases (very readily communicable): measles, rubella
(rotheln), scarlet fever, smallpox, varicella (chicken pox), typhus
fever, relapsing fever, bubonic plague, acute anterior poliomyelitis
(infantile paralysis), influenza (epidemic influenza, Spanish influenza)
and pneumonia, all forms, including bronchopneumonia.
B. Communicable diseases: diphteria (croup in all forms), typhoid fever,
Asiatic cholera, anthrax, glanders, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis,
leprosy, tuberculosis (of any organ), infectious eye diseases (trachoma,
suppurative conjunctivitis, ophthalmia neonatorum), puerperal septicemia,
erysipelas, whooping cough, syphillis and gonorrhea.
C. Indirectly communicable diseases (through the intermediate host):
yellow fever and malarial fever.
No person suffering from any of the diseases named in §
158-1 (except tuberculosis, malarial fever, syphilis and gonorrhea) and no person in charge of such patient (except in cases of tuberculosis, malarial fever, typhoid fever, syphilis and gonorrhea) shall attend any public, private or Sunday school or any public place or enter any public conveyance without first notifying the owner, driver or person in charge thereof, who shall thereafter provide for the disinfection of such conveyance before permitting its use again, but no owner, driver or person in charge of any public conveyance of any kind shall permit any person suffering from any disease mentioned in §
158-1A or
B of this chapter (excepting tuberculosis, infectious eye diseases or puerperal septicemia, typhoid fever, syphilis and gonorrhea) to enter or ride in such public conveyance.
It shall be the duty of the Health Commissioner, whenever a
case of poliomyelitis shall come to his attention in any manner, forthwith
to cause the removal to a suitable hospital of the person whose illness
is diagnosed as poliomyelitis.
If any building or part of a building, upon inspection by an
officer or representative of the Health Department, shall be deemed
by the Health Commissioner unfit for human habitation by reason of
infection or the existence of other cause tending to endanger health,
such building or part of a building shall be vacated within such time
as may be fixed by the Health Commissioner. In every case of smallpox,
the patient shall be removed to the quarantine hospital, except when
such removal would place the life of the patient in jeopardy, in which
case the Health Commissioner may grant a permit for the patient to
remain at home upon compliance with such precautions as may be prescribed
by said Health Commissioner.
No person, other than the attending physician, shall enter or depart from a house in which is a person suffering from any of the diseases mentioned in §
158-1 of this chapter without permission from the Health Commissioner, except in cases of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, infectious eye diseases, puerperal septicemia or malarial fever, syphilis and gonorrhea, and until such house has been disinfected according to the rules of the Health Department.
No person shall sell, lend or give away or dispose of in any
manner, except destruction by fire, any clothing, bedding, rags or
other articles exposed to infection or liable to carry the same, articles
properly protected and in transit for disinfection or destruction
excepted.
No person shall bring or aid in bringing into the City of Buffalo any person suffering from any of the infectious diseases mentioned in §
158-1 of this chapter, except syphilis and gonorrhea.
No person shall make or procure or cause to be made any clothing
or wearing apparel of any kind in any house or building wherein any
person is sick with smallpox, varioloid or other infectious disease,
except for the personal use of the inmates of said house or building;
and no person shall sell or expose for sale any clothing or wearing
apparel which shall have been made in any house or building in which
there shall have been at the time when said clothing was made any
person sick or infected with any such disease.
No person shall visit or enter any house wherein is any person
sick with small pox or varioloid, except the persons who, at the time
said patient was taken sick, were residents of said house, the nurse
or nurses employed in the care of such patient and such regularly
attending physicians as may be called; nor shall any person who is
in constant attendance upon such sick person leave or depart from
said house during the time when such sick person remains therein,
and not thereafter until the wearing apparel which he or she has worn
while in attendance upon such sick person shall have been replaced
by clothing which has not been worn in such sickroom, and then only
upon a written permit from the Health Commissioner. It shall be the
duty of the Health Department to put up and maintain in a conspicuous
place at the front entrance of any building, and also at any other
entrance thereof, in which there shall be any person sick or infected
with smallpox, varioloid, scarlet fever or diphtheria (or croup in
any form) a card or sign on which shall be written or printed in English
and German, Italian or Polish the words designating the infectious
disease with which such sick person is affected and to keep the same
so posted during all the time when such sick or infected person shall
remain in said building. In any cases mentioned in this section, it
shall be unlawful to remove or cause to be removed any such placard
or notification of warning so placed by the Health Department; and
in cases of diphtheria, such placard shall not be removed until bacteriological
examinations shall have shown that no further danger from contagion
exists; and no person shall, without the permission of the Health
Commissioner, remove any such sign or placard so placed on any building.
In case any such sign shall have been removed, either by accident
or design, it shall be the duty of the person or persons occupying
said building to notify the Department of Health thereof forthwith.
It shall be the duty of every medical school examiner to visit
all schools within his district when required to do so by the Health
Commissioner and examine the pupils in attendance upon said schools
for the purpose of determining whether or not such pupils should be
vaccinated and to report to the Health Department the number of said
pupils who have not been vaccinated and who require to be vaccinated;
and it shall be his duty to vaccinate said pupils whenever the Health
Commissioner shall so direct.
It shall be the duty of the medical school examiners to visit
all the schools in the City of Buffalo systematically for the purpose
of making such examinations and inspections as may be required by
the rules and regulations prescribed by the Health Commissioner for
this purpose; and they shall perform any work assigned to them at
any time by said Health Commissioner. The school nurses likewise shall
perform such duties as may be assigned to them by the Health Commissioner.
No person shall let, lease or hire any room, house or any part
of a house in which there has been any infectious disease until after
said room, house or part of a house shall have been disinfected under
regulations approved by the Health Commissioner. It shall be the duty
of every person letting, leasing or hiring any house or building or
part thereof to make to the person negotiating for the same a true
statement concerning instances of infectious diseases therein within
the previous three (3) months.
No parent or person having care or charge of a child or person
with whom a child resides who is or has been suffering from infectious
or contagious disease or who resides in a house where such disease
exists or has existed within a period of six (6) months shall knowingly
or negligently permit such child to attend school without procuring
and producing to the teacher or person in charge of such school a
certificate from some registered medical practitioner, approved of
by the Health Commissioner, that such child has become free from disease
and infection and that the house and everything therein exposed to
infection have been disinfected to the satisfaction of the Health
Commissioner. No teacher or person in charge of any school shall knowingly
permit any child to attend such school in contravention of the provisions
of this chapter.
It shall be the duty of the Health Commissioner to have printed in English, German, Polish and Italian circulars and other literature pertaining to all the infectious diseases specified in §
158-1 of this chapter and to cause said circulars and literature to be distributed for the information of the public. In the case of tuberculosis, he shall have printed, in addition, suitable signs or placards explaining the danger of indiscriminate expectoration.